


like it's the old days

by softvoicesdie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: this made my friend cry and i'll wear that badge of honour with pride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26477191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softvoicesdie/pseuds/softvoicesdie
Summary: The first time Angelina sees George,after, she thinks she’s seen a ghost.
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	like it's the old days

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't get this idea out of my head after listening to the song Angelina by Pinegrove. the title is a lyric from the song too.

The first time Angelina sees George, _after_ , she thinks she’s seen a ghost.

George is clued in pretty fast when she drops whatever it is she’s holding and stares at him, hands shaking, mouth moving silently.

“I’m sorry,” he says, offering up a sad smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m not -- er, that is, I’m George. I’m not _him_.”

It’s not anything he isn’t used to, anyway. Even his mum can barely look at him these days without crying -- hell, sometimes he flinches at his own reflection in the mirror or a passing shop window.

“Oh,” she says. “I just thought...for a second…”

“I know.”

She seems to regain control of herself, and shoots him an accusing look. “Why are you here, then, George Weasley?”

 _Here_ is a Muggle street in the middle of god-forsaken-fucking-nowhere that had taken him two weeks and a series of ingratiating letters to Katie Bell to find, and honestly? _He_ isn’t sure why he’s there either.

“I could ask you the same question, Angelina Johnson.”

She gestures at the thing she dropped earlier. “I’m _working_. Not that you would know much about that, yourself.”

“Working?” he says incredulously. “In a Muggle-- whatever this is?”

“Yes. Working. Washing windows.”

He stares. “By hand.”

She sighs. “Look, Weasley. Maybe we should sit down and get something to eat.”

Before he can reply, she’s striding off down the street and he has to jog to keep up. She takes him to a dingy little cafe off the main road with checkered floors and fluorescent lighting that’s at war with the summer sun; it’s marginally cooler in here and he feels like he’s stepped into a different world.

“It’s not great,” she says. “But I found out pretty fast it’s the only place around here that won’t ask questions when you cry into your eggs.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he takes a seat at the table nearest to the door. He can’t relax when he’s not close to an exit these days. They order cappuccinos from a harried waitress and stare at the table in uneasy silence.

“So,” Angelina says.

“So.”

“You found me.”

He meets her eyes. “Only after I spent about three rolls of parchment promising Katie Bell I wasn’t going to re-traumatise you, or something.”

“Oh no,” she says, and she’s smiling for the first time since he showed up. “I’m sorry about her. She took _one_ Muggle psychology class and now she thinks she’s my therapist.”

George snorts. “Yeah, that explains a lot, actually.”

They subside back into silence. Angelina stirs her coffee, and the spoon clinking against the side of the cup and the whir of the fan are the only noises in the cafe.

“I can’t do magic anymore,” she says suddenly.

“What?” George asks. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why I’m here. Washing windows by hand so I’ve got enough to pay my parents’ rent. Ever since he-- ever since the war. I can’t do magic.”

“But...how’s that even possible? I’ve never heard of anything like that happening.”

She stirs her coffee again before responding. “I s’pose I _could_ do it, if I had to. It’s not like my well of magic or whatever has just dried up. But it’s like, you know when you’ve got a sore throat, and you _could_ speak, if you tried really hard, but you can’t really bring yourself to?”

“Yeah,” he says, but he doesn’t get it, not really. For George, magic has always been there, has filled the cracks and crevices of his childhood and permeated every memory he has. It’s just part of him, just as innocuous and reliable as his hair or his organs. “But surely you could’ve gotten a job at Flourish and Blotts, or something, that doesn’t really use magic? Surely you didn’t have to come all the way out here, with these Muggles?”

“Maybe I like it here,” she snaps. “I grew up here, you know, _with these Muggles_.”

George winces. “Merlin. I’m sorry.”

She stares resolutely at the table again, and he considers getting up and leaving, going back home to haunt the rooms of the Burrow and avoid his parents’ eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says after a pause. “ _I’m_ sorry. You’re right. I fucking hate this town. I came here because it’s the only place I could think of where _he’s_ never been.”

“Oh,” George says, because it’s all he can say without his voice breaking.

“Anyway,” she says, and he pretends not to see her wipe her eyes. “Tell me about you! How’s the joke shop?”

“Er,” he says. “Yeah. Well. I haven’t been there, since, you know. I don’t think I could do it without him.”

She reaches across the table and touches his hand. Her fingers are warm and soft. “I know.”

*

The first time they kiss, Angelina cries for ten minutes. George cries for half an hour.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It just feels so twisted.”

“You need to stop apologising,” George says. “But, if it’s a competition, I’m easily the most sorry.”

She whacks his shoulder while tears roll down both their cheeks.

The second time is better. There’s no tears, not straight away, anyway, and in George’s arms Angelina feels something stir in her chest where it had lay dormant for so long.

“George,” she says. “Pass me my wand, will you?”

It sparks feebly in her hand, which isn’t much, but it’s progress.

The third time, she asks him what they’re doing, what this is.

“I don’t know, really,” George says. “I just keep coming back.”

When they sleep together, after weeks of chaste kisses and silent cafe dates, she accidentally calls him Fred. He doesn’t correct her.

*

Her magic doesn’t come back straight away -- it’s not nearly that simple. She feels like she’s on the precipice, sometimes, one step off the cliff away from normalcy, but she doesn’t have the courage or the tools to make the jump.

The first time George brings her home to the Burrow, Mrs Weasley takes Angelina’s hands in her own and looks at her with a lopsided little smile and tears in her eyes.

“Thank you,” Mrs Weasley says. “You’re the only reason I didn’t lose them both.”

(She doesn’t notice, but her wand sparks again where it sits in her pocket.)

*

George goes back to the joke shop, eventually, with Angelina there beside him. It’s her who thinks of Ron.

“What do you mean, Ron?” George asks.

“You could do this with him,” she says. “I bet he’d love it.”

And he does. He’s an insufferable git about workers’ discounts and pay rates, of course, but for all George’s grumbles he doesn’t really mind. There’s still something missing from the shop, but Ron makes the absence a little less obvious, makes it hurt a little less.

They get a pair of twins as customers on the first day they reopen, and George stops dead in his tracks at the sight of them. They move as if in tandem, sharing knowing glances full of meaning, and George is frozen in the aisle. Ron pulls him to the back room and Floos Angelina before he goes out to serve them. George cries in her arms. Again.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” she says. “I feel responsible. I’m sorry.”

“No,” George says thickly. “It feels right. He wouldn’t want me to give up.”

*

They move in together after a year, into the flat over the shop. George hasn’t been up there since before they were on the run, the year of the war, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. George spends a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled week trying and failing to use the cleaning spells Mrs Weasley gave them, until Angelina sighs and starts washing the windows by hand.

“You’re pretty good at that, actually,” says George, coming up behind her with a mug of tea cradled in his hands.

“I know,” Angelina says smugly. “You took me away from my calling.”

George opens his mouth to retort but before he can she’s kissing him and the sudsy cloth is dripping on their socked feet. Neither of them notice.

They do notice, however, when Angelina’s wand lets out a stream of involuntary gold fireworks.

*

Fred Weasley the second is born in a house where flowers bloom from window boxes overlooking the bustle of Diagon Alley; where his father’s pockets are always full of jokes; where there isn’t a conversation that doesn’t end in laughter.

He knows his namesake looked exactly like his father, because there’s a picture of the two of them that’s framed over the mantel. In it, they're laughing so hard there’s tears in their eyes. It’s an expression he knows, because his father looks that way almost every day. He doesn’t know that George had to learn how to laugh again, after.

Fred Weasley the second is born in a house where the sun shines through the walls to dance on the floorboards, and the windows are always sparkling.


End file.
